


the loving in your body

by junes_discotheque



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Blindfolds, Bondage, Caning, Dom/sub, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Good BDSM Etiquette, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Quentin Coldwater is a sub, Spanking, discussion of various kinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 20:57:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junes_discotheque/pseuds/junes_discotheque
Summary: And so, with the understanding that unless he presses, it’s doomed to remain unspoken between them forever, he asks.Casually.“So, Q, what’s your deepest, darkest fantasy?”==In which Eliot is curious and Quentin is a lot more adventurous than he would've thought.





	the loving in your body

One year, five months, and twenty-one days into the Mosaic quest, Eliot asks.

They’re curled up together in bed, the quilt warm on their legs, Quentin’s head resting on Eliot’s shoulder. Almost six months since Quentin kissed him. And it’s been _good_ ; wonderful, even. Quentin is surprisingly bold in bed, when he thinks it’s what Eliot wants, and while he takes direction beautifully, he has yet to really ask Eliot for anything in return. Which, Eliot is realizing, might be a _problem,_ because he can tell, in the creases of Q’s forehead and the trembling of his hands, that there’s something he’s ashamed of.

Eliot _wants_ it.

And so, with the understanding that unless he presses, it’s doomed to remain unspoken between them _forever,_ he asks.

Casually.

“So, Q, what’s your _deepest, darkest_ fantasy?”

Five seconds of total silence later, Quentin bursts out laughing. “Seriously, El?” he says. “ _That’s_ how you ask? What happened to getting me drunk and playing Truth or Dare or Never Have I Ever?”

“We can do that, if it’s easier for you,” Eliot says, ducking his head down a little to kiss the top of Q’s head. “I just thought it’d be quicker to skip the pretense.”

There’s some grumbling, and some rustling, as Quentin kicks at the quilt. It’s an anxious tic that Eliot is well familiar with; all that excess energy expelling itself through Q’s legs. Eliot keeps playing with his hair until he settles.

“Truth or dare?” Q asks, an edge to his voice that’s irritation or sarcasm or both.

Eliot laughs. “I’m supposed to ask _you_ that. And we’re not drunk.”

“Well, your flask is _all the way over there_ ,” Q points out. “And since I already know what you’re gonna ask me, I should get something first.”

“Hmm,” Eliot says. Fair enough, he thinks, and tells himself he’s _letting_ Q win. “Truth.”

“What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?”

Eliot’s hand falters in Q’s hair, just for a moment, as he’s taken aback by the question. He’s not sure why it shocks him so much. Perhaps he wasn’t expecting Quentin to be so _devious?_ It’s obviously a test, after all, and he understands then—Q’s answer to his question is going to be _wild._ He just wants to make sure Eliot can handle it.

So he’s being tested. So that’s okay. As far as _kinkiest_ goes, that’s a bit harder. It’s all a matter of opinion, after all, but he has a lot of stories; the point, as he understands it, isn’t to show off his deviancy, but to make Q believe he’s comfortable, in the normal course of things, with playing rougher. Which means anything drenched in drugs or drink is out of the running.

It’ll have to be _personal._ Real. He wants Q to expose his deepest desires, after all. Some reciprocity is expected.

“Back at Brakebills,” he says, slow and deliberate, “I would play these _games_ with younger boys.”

“The ones where—they had you do _chores?_ And smacked you around?” Q laughs a little. “Yeah, I know about those. I saw you once. It was like—I dunno. I wondered why you didn’t ask me, but then, I’m not exactly—I think we both know I can’t do that.”

Eliot takes a moment to get his bearings. “You—what, you _saw?_ ” He should be embarrassed, he thinks; he’s under no illusions about his preferences, but _that particular_ need had been. Very specific. And Quentin had seen. And he realizes—he doesn’t really mind.

“I saw him spit on you, and slap you,” Quentin says. “I kind of—left, after that. Anyway, that’s not really—can I amend my question?”

“Sure,” Eliot says, barely listening. He’s still reeling, he thinks. God. At least—at least it was only that, that Quentin saw. Thank all the fucks for small miracles. He had been prepared to tell him about the rest of _those_ scenes, but if he wants to move on—Eliot’s not going to argue.

“Okay. What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done, like. In the other position?”

“You mean as a top?” Eliot asks. He feels Quentin nod. Safer waters, he sighs to himself; he can brag about topping all day. He knows it says something… not exactly _attractive_ about himself, that he’ll flaunt his exploits as a dom but hide his sub side far away from himself. Still, as far as stories... “My first year. I was sleeping with this second year boy. He wanted me to choke him, and he wanted to call me Daddy.”

Q stiffens a little. “Oh,” he says. It’s a little breathy, and Eliot wonders. “What—did you like it?”

“I didn’t think I would,” Eliot says, honestly. “But yes. It only happened, like, twice; he failed out pretty soon after and I never saw him again.”

He can hear the wheels turning in Quentin’s head. He definitely hasn’t been unaffected by the story, and while Eliot doubts it matches Q’s own fantasy, he wonders if he isn’t going to be thinking about it. Winding himself up. Asking for it, sometime soon, because he can’t stop imagining it.

Eliot realizes he’s looking forward to it. To _everything_ , really, once he breaks through the barrier of shame that keeps Q from talking about sex.

“Okay,” Eliot says, because if the silence stretches on any longer they’re both going to get too worked up to talk. “Your turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Quentin whispers dutifully.

“You know what I want to know.” Eliot tugs at Q’s hair. “Will you tell me?”

He’s trying. Eliot can’t see his face, but he imagines Quentin’s mouth moving soundlessly, as he tries to force the words from his throat. He pictures Q’s forehead wrinkling with frustration and wishes he _could_ see it, so he could press his fingers to Quentin’s temples and rub away the tension there, gentle him down from his panic and encourage him to speak.

Finally, he feels Quentin sigh. “Can I just. Have some time? Please?”

“Sure,” Eliot says easily, and Q relaxes against him.

“I know you won’t drop it, and I want to tell you, it’s just.”

Eliot tangles his fingers in Q’s hair and tugs him up for a kiss. “I know,” he says. “It’s okay. Take your time.” He pauses. “It’s hard. You’re doing so well, trying for me.”

Quentin sighs happily against Eliot’s mouth, squirming closer and running his fingers over his chest. “Can we still—”

“Whatever you want,” Eliot says, and Q props himself up on his elbows, leaning over Eliot, his hair curtaining them both. He shifts a little, and Eliot can feel his cock pressing hard against his thigh. He’s so wound up, Eliot realizes, just from what Eliot’s told him and the _thought_ of whatever it is Quentin’s hiding.

“Will you fuck me?” he asks, breathless. Eliot braces his arm against the thin mattress and flips them easily, pinning Quentin underneath him. Q looks at him with wide, shining eyes, and tilts his chin up, begging for a kiss.

Eliot obliges, lacing his fingers through Quentin’s and pushing his hands into the bed, swallowing Quentin’s whine as he shudders helplessly in Eliot’s arms. He always surrenders so beautifully, and Eliot knows, _knows,_ whatever it is that Quentin wants most is going to be nothing less than _spectacular._

“Please,” Q says, more demanding than begging, “ _f_ _uck_ me.”

As if Eliot could ever say no.

* *

It takes three days for Q to bring it up again.

“Why do you want to know?” he asks. They’re lying in bed again, Eliot just having fucked the brains out of Quentin. Or thought he did, at least; if Q is coherent enough to have this conversation, he _really_ needs to up his game. “I mean. I’d assume it’s for, like, blackmail material, except we’re an entire world and several decades away from anyone who might give a shit, so.”

Eliot rolls his eyes and tugs Quentin in closer, hoping to leech away some of that insecurity with sheer body heat. “I want to give you what you want,” he says. “Is that so unbelievable?”

He can almost hear the _maybe_ on the tip of Quentin’s tongue, but it stays there, unspoken, while he contemplates. “I guess not,” he says at last. “I just. It’s kind of.” Eliot stays quiet while Q struggles. “It’s a lot. So don’t feel like you _have_ to—it’s pretty heavy, El.”

Eliot restrains himself from telling Q that thinking anything in his head could possibly shock him is adorable. He has a feeling it won’t go over well, and any interruption could end Q’s willingness to open up immediately, which is untenable. He just hums and strokes Q’s hair, hoping the gesture comes off as encouraging.

“Okay, so, in the second _Fillory_ book,” he starts, and Eliot grins against his hair, because _of course_ . His mind flits through a dozen roleplay scenarios. He’s up for all of them, he thinks, even the bestiality ones, provided Q doesn’t _actually_ want to bring a talking animal into bed with them. “You know, I used to pretend to be Martin Chatwin when I was a kid? I wanted to be him _so badly_.”

“Yes, I know,” Eliot says fondly. Quentin clears his throat, embarrassed. In the dim moonslight, Eliot can’t see his face, but he rubs his thumb over Q’s cheekbones and imagines how pink his face must be.

“Right. So anyway. In the second book—they’re all back at school, right, or Jane and Martin are, and. There’s this scene, where Martin comes home and he’s upset, because some older boys got him into trouble, and—” He stops. Swallows. “The—headmaster,” he continues, his voice suddenly quiet. Nearly a whisper. “He called Martin into his office and—and he caned him.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, but Q’s on a roll now.

“And I mean. I was just a kid. I had no idea—but that stuck with me, that part of the book, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it and—when I got older, it stuck with me in _other ways._ And it’s probably ruined now, because Martin was a _real person_ and Plover obviously knew about the—And I don’t even want to _think_ about—” Quentin shudders and Eliot holds him tighter. “Anyway. So that’s. What that is.” Q waits about half a beat for Eliot to react, and then adds, “Please say something.”

There are a million things Eliot can think of to say, but none of them are particularly _good_ or _coherent._ He knows this was hard for Q, though, and if he’s given too long without a reaction he’ll start panicking. So he tilts Q’s face up to his, and he kisses him—partly to buy more time, but mostly because he just _wants_ to.

“So, is that a good thing?” Quentin asks, as soon as they break for air. Eliot laughs.

“Yes. It’s a good thing.” He settles Q back against his chest, cards his fingers through his ever-growing hair. “If you want to keep it just a fantasy, that’s perfectly alright, but if you actually want to give it a try—I want to give it to you,” Eliot says. “In which case we’re going to have several serious discussions about scenario and safety and consent, which I have no doubt you’ll hate very much.” Q will hate it, but Eliot—he’ll get to watch Q squirm, watch his skin flush red with embarrassment, and he’ll get to push Q to articulate things he’s kept in the secret locked places of his heart for so long. Just the idea of it is thrilling.

“Oh. Uh,” Q says.

“Not tonight,” Eliot says, quickly putting an end to whatever nervous thoughts are going through Q’s mind. “Think about it, and when you’re ready—when you’re _sure_ —we’ll talk. Right now, we should sleep.”

Quentin turns his face into Eliot’s neck and burrows there for a moment. Eliot just strokes his hair, waiting for whatever Q’s thinking to pass.

“Okay,” he says, finally, shifting around to get more comfortable. He’s still using Eliot as a pillow. “Goodnight?”

“Goodnight, Q.”

* *

Eliot wakes with Quentin’s mouth on his cock.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” he mumbles, his voice hoarse from sleep, as he raises a hand to stroke Q’s hair. Quentin hums around his mouthful; he’s not moving, not really, just keeping Eliot’s dick warm, the head just barely nudging the back of his throat. His hair is an utter disaster, tangled into knots and sticking up in all directions, and his cheeks are flushed pink in the morning light.

He slides slowly off Eliot’s cock, letting out a whine as it slips free as though it actually _hurts_ him not to have something in his mouth. Eliot rubs a thumb over his red, swollen lips, and Quentin sighs, letting Eliot slide the digit inside and press down on his tongue.

“What’s this for? Not that I’m complaining,” he says, adding the last part quickly. He’s definitely not doing that; Q’s sweet eagerness isn’t something he ever wants to dissuade. But after last night’s conversation, he needs to know where Q’s head is at.

“Uh,” Quentin says, muffled by Eliot’s finger. Reluctantly, he turns his head to the side, and Eliot withdraws. “I just. Wanted to thank you, I guess? For not freaking out about… what I told you.” He gives Eliot a rueful smile, and adds, “And I woke up, and _you_. And I really wanted to suck your cock.”

Eliot laughs and cards his fingers through Q’s hair, attempting to get some of the knots out. “I appreciate it,” he says, “but I should be thanking _you_ for telling me.”

Q blushes a little, looking down at Eliot’s wet cock, still hard against his stomach. “Well. Can you thank me by letting me finish sucking you?” he asks, smirking. _Brat._

“Hmm,” Eliot pretends to contemplate, just to see Quentin squirm. He _likes_ this, pushing a little bit against Q’s anxiety. He’s wondered on occasion, idly, what might happen if he pushed harder. It wasn’t something he wanted to do without, like, _actually talking about it,_ for obvious reasons, but now. Now, he thinks Q might actually be _receptive_ to the idea.

There’s a crease forming between Q’s eyes, and Eliot realizes he’s been quiet too long. He reaches up and rubs away the wrinkle, smiling fondly. “Of course, you may,” he says, shifting his legs and propping himself up against the headboard so that he can watch.

Q’s lips move awkwardly, soundless, but he gives up on whatever he wants to say pretty quickly in favor of lowering his head to lick Eliot’s cock into his mouth.

Over the last six months that they’ve been fucking, Eliot’s tried to coach Quentin’s technique into something with more _finesse._ It hasn’t really worked. Q can only maintain it as long as he’s absolutely focused, but the _second_ Eliot tugs on his hair or thrusts into his mouth, that focus goes flying out the nearest window. Which is something else Eliot’s realizing he’s going to have to discuss with him. He’s pretty sure Q doesn’t have the slightest clue what subspace is.

All this to say: Q has absolutely no technique to speak of, but he sucks cock like he’s _starving_ for it; like he’s just spent the last month crawling through the desert and Eliot’s come is the only thing that’ll quench his thirst. He chokes on it over and over, drooling down the shaft and soaking Eliot’s thighs, until he finally pulls off to cough. Even then he keeps working, fisting Eliot’s dick and licking at the head between fits.

Eliot rubs his thumb over Q’s cheekbone, admiring his flushed-red face and pretty, glistening mouth, and thinks he might come just from looking at him. He doesn’t care if Quentin never gets any better at this. The most skilled fellatist in the world couldn’t compare to Q’s sloppy, needy mouth.

“Good boy,” he says, as Quentin finally settles enough to get his mouth back to work. “That’s it. You gonna make me come?”

Q hums an affirmative around his mouthful, sliding up the shaft to roll his tongue around the head, slurping obscenely. Eliot groans. Fuck, _fuck,_ he’s closer than he realized.

“Good, good,” he gasps, nonsensical praise that makes Q shiver and work harder, trying desperately to open his throat and take Eliot down. He hasn’t managed it yet, and from the gagging noises he’s making he’s still not there. Eliot sees a wetness shining on Q’s cheeks, too high to be spit or precome, and upon realizing he’s _crying_ with the effort to deep-throat, Eliot comes like a fucking _shot._ It crashes into him, hard, and just keeps going. Vaguely, he can hear Q struggling with the load, but his vision has totally blurred and the rushing of blood pounding in his ears is blocking everything else out.

When he finally stops coming and returns to reality, it’s to Q kneeling on the bed, still between his legs, his chest bare and splotchy and his cock obviously hard in his sleep pants. He has an odd look on his face; pained, maybe.

“Q?” Eliot asks.

Quentin opens his mouth. There, glistening on his tongue, is Eliot’s come. He feels his own mouth go completely dry as Q closes his lips, and swallows, and meets his eyes with a quietly victorious look.

“Thank you,” he says, and rolls off the bed to find his clothes.

Eliot is completely frozen as Quentin gets dressed, too shocked to even enjoy the view of his ass when he changes his pants. It takes until the cottage door has swung shut behind him and he can hear the clacking sound of Quentin picking up the tiles from yesterday’s mosaic attempt before he can speak. And then, it’s only two words, and it’s to the thatched roof of their home:

“Holy _fuck._ ”

* *

Eventually, Eliot manages to drag himself out of bed and dress. He wipes his wet dick with one of Q’s shirts and picks out a pair of black pants and a white, loose shirt that makes him look a little like a pirate and never fails to get Quentin staring. It’s warm, so he forgoes shoes for now, preferring the soft Fillorian grass between his toes to flopping around awkwardly in loose slippers.

He steps outside into the quiet morning, taking a deep breath of fresh, opium-infused air, and heads over to the mosaic. Q is kneeling in the middle of the plot, hair pulled back in a bun with a few stray pieces framing his face. His eyes are closed as he waves his hand over the space, clearly planning something out in his mind. Eliot smiles fondly at him and makes his way silently over to the ladder. He climbs up a few rungs and perches there.

“So, Q,” he says, and Q startles so hard he topples backward. “What’s the _beauty of all life_ look like today?”

Quentin looks up at him, and it’s obvious he’s trying so hard to look irritated, but there’s a high flush in his cheeks. He wonders if, outside their bedroom, Q’s ashamed of what they’ve discussed. What they’ve _done._ He hopes not; that wouldn’t bode well for any of the many, _many_ things Eliot wants to do to and with him.

“Uh,” Q says. “I mean. It’s kinda dumb, but.”

“I thought we decided,” Eliot says, tapping his nails against the ladder, “there are _no_ dumb designs. And knowing _Fillory,_ the answer is probably _spectacularly_ stupid, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Q says, pushing a wayward piece of hair out of his eyes and tucking it behind his ear. “Okay. So I took—a walk, earlier, just around, while you were—getting dressed. And there was this tree, a little ways that way—” he waves vaguely to his right—“And there was a little bird’s nest, with two babies and one waiting to hatch, and the mom was standing right above it and _looked_ at me, and—you know, I’m no naturalist—but I _felt_ something, El. So I thought. Maybe try that.” He looks down at his hands. “Except I still have no actual artistic skill.”

 _Fuck_ , he’s adorable. Something deep in Eliot’s chest clenches. “It’s not a stupid idea,” Eliot says, surprising himself with how soft he sounds. “And lucky for you, I _do_ have some artistic skill.”

Q looks pleased at that. “Okay. Okay, good. Then you can tell me if my birds look like shit.” He picks up a stack of brown tiles and turns away from Eliot, getting up on his elbows and knees to start laying out the branches of his tree. Eliot nearly chokes at the sight of Q’s ass, the shapeless tan pants pulled tight around his curves, and knows without a doubt Q is doing it on purpose.

It’s like telling Eliot about his fantasy opened an entire floodgate of sexuality neither of them knew existed. Like the first week after they started fucking all over again, when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other despite their morning-after promise to _save the overthinking for the puzzle._ They’d been entirely unproductive that week, tossing down tiles in any random order so they could declare the day’s work done before lunchtime and spend the rest of it exploring each other’s bodies in the afternoon sun, safely hidden behind Eliot’s privacy wards.

(Fucking on the mosaic did not reveal the key, but that hadn’t stopped them from repeating the experiment half a dozen times the first week and many, many more times since. After all, just because the _beauty of all life_ wasn’t expressed through Quentin lying on his back, knees pressed to his shoulders while Eliot drove into him, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be expressed through Quentin on his hands and knees, or straddling Eliot, or Eliot riding Q, or…

None of the positions have worked so far, but now that they’re opening all-new doors of possibilities, there’s going to be many more to try.)

For today, Eliot is content to sit on the ladder and watch Quentin work. He’s not disappointed; from his vantage point, he’s granted an excellent view of Q’s ass, not to mention the ongoing artistic crisis that, for some reason, Eliot has decided to find adorable. Q mutters to himself as he moves tiles around, gets easily frustrated with a particularly terrible attempt at depicting the mother bird in mosaic tiles (for which he has yet to ask Eliot for assistance, even though Eliot knows it’s only a matter of time) and grows more and more irritable until he finally pitches himself backwards and starfishes across the white expanse.

Eliot smirks to himself as he slowly descends the ladder. Quentin barely twitches as he approaches and crouches down by his head, stroking his hair gently.

“It’s not even lunchtime, darling,” he says. “Far too early for you to be _this_ frustrated.”

Q lets out an unattractive little snorting laugh. “Easy for you to say,” he says. His eyes are still shut against the morning light, and Eliot nudges his hand until he relents and allows Eliot to pull him up to sit, cross-legged, on the half-finished mosaic.

“Okay,” Eliot says. He unhooks the wineskin from his waistband and hands it to Q, who takes several long, grateful sips. “Look, I said I’d give you time before bringing up what we discussed last night, but. I think _not talking about it_ is just making you more anxious. Am I right?” he asks, rhetorically; he knows he is. Still, Q nods. “So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to help you with this. You’re in charge—you can boss me around all you like, but I’m going to ignore everything you say about the birds, because sweetheart, you are _hopeless._ ”

Quentin looks like he’s going to argue, but he catches sight of his misshapen bird and just sighs, ducking his head in embarrassment. Eliot can’t help but reach out and grasp the back of his neck gently, where his hand always wants to go, and tilt his face back upwards. Q’s eyes are wide and a little hazy, like his body _wants_ to submit and is already starting to take him down.

“And then, well. If this works, we can have this conversation back in the Physical Cottage, but if it doesn’t, I’ll cook for you and we’ll talk.”

“Okay,” Quentin says. His lips are soft and parted. Eliot leans in, kisses him, like he always wants to. It’s downright distracting sometimes; how much he wants to kiss Quentin and how much Quentin wants to be kissed. Eliot never wants to live in a world where he _isn’t_ kissing him.

He wasn’t lying about having this conversation in the Physical Kids Cottage, if this pattern actually works and they get to go back to Brakebills. It wouldn’t change anything for him, he thinks. The only thing it would change would be access to Google (for research) and Amazon Prime (for… _accessories_ ). He resolutely ignores the part of his brain that’s arguing Quentin might feel differently, if he were somewhere else with better options. For now, he is selfishly glad that Q is here with _him,_ trembling with the effort to take what Eliot gives him and not demand more.

It deserves a reward, Eliot decides, shifting position so that he’s kneeling up on the mosaic and towering over Quentin. It makes him strain to meet Eliot’s lips, the long line of his throat exposed. Eliot keeps one hand there, stroking gently over the slight bump of his Adam’s apple, and with the other he slips the tie out of Quentin’s hair and grips the loose strands, tugging hard enough to make Q break from the kiss. He’s shaking and gasping as he scrambles up on his knees, mirroring Eliot, desperate to be kissed again. Eliot takes advantage of the opportunity and dives right back in, biting roughly at Quentin’s lower lip before kissing him hard. He fucks Q’s mouth with his tongue in firm strokes that leave him whining and breathless.

The second he feels Q’s fingers brushing over his cheek, he stops. It takes all of his effort, every ounce of willpower he can muster, but he does. A quick glance as he stands up confirms Quentin’s hard in his loose Fillorian pants. He can’t help himself—he ducks down once more, stops two inches from Quentin’s lips, and smacks his ass _hard_ as he straightens up and walks away.

Eliot keeps an eye on Q in his periphery: slack-mouthed, shocked, but wide-eyed and wanting.

* *

Bossing Eliot around, while thrilling, is nearly always deeply frustrating, even when Quentin _isn’t_ hard and stupid and desperate just from a little kissing. His ass throbs a little, where Eliot hit him, but it’s fading fast; his dick, on the other hand, hasn’t seemed to get the message that Q isn’t going to get to come anytime soon, staying hard and sensitive so that every time Quentin shifts, the friction from his pants forces him to bite back a whimper. His entire face is red, he’s sure, as if he needed another blow to the authority he’s faking.

Eliot enjoys it when he’s in charge, Quentin thinks, as much as he enjoys anything else—but always with a slightly ironic air of amusement. Quentin will tell him, no, put the _green_ tile there, and Eliot will arch an eyebrow at him and smirk and fucking— _f_ _ondle_ the thing with his long fucking fingers until Q wants to shout at him to just _put it in, Christ, Eliot,_ but he knows all _that_ would do is turn his smirk into a full grin, and Eliot wouldn’t even have to _make_ the joke. Which would almost be worse; like Q isn’t worth the effort of Eliot’s wry double-entendres.

And, fuck, the way Eliot _looks_ at him. Like Quentin’s a barely-housebroken puppy who just learned a new trick. As if wanting El to boss him around in bed (and, maybe, hurt him) means he’s completely useless outside of it. He wonders, sometimes, if Eliot respected him more before they started sleeping together; if knowing how much he likes being fucked and how needy he always is for the slightest touch means Eliot’s never going to take him seriously again.

(But no. This is just how Eliot is; how he’s always been. Treating everything that comes out of Quentin’s mouth with vague amusement. Nothing’s changed, really, except the physical. Quentin’s not sure if that’s comforting.)

To make matters _even worse,_ as soon as they’re done with this awful, awful exercise, Eliot is going to sit him down and feed him and pry more embarrassing secrets out of his brain. Like last night wasn’t bad enough. Sure, Eliot hadn’t freaked out, but somehow this _insistence_ that, like, of _course_ he’s going to fulfill Quentin’s fantasy, what, like that was even a question? Somehow, that’s even worse. What has he even done to deserve it, anyway? A full year of moping and whining and irritability, and six months of bad head and lying there like a dead fish while Eliot tries to get some pleasure out of his body.

Then again. It makes sense, probably, Eliot wanting to get Quentin to make things more exciting. Since his meager attempts at being sexy clearly aren’t working. He won’t lie about his inexperience; he’s not _stupid,_ after all, and it’s not like he can erase the last six months of awkward fumbling from Eliot’s memory. But he’s never. Not like. And he has no idea how he’s going to reconcile his _really fucking intense fantasy_ with a reality where he’s never done anything close to it.

A reality, he knows, that’s just going to be disappointing for both of them.

Before Alice—well, he remembers insisting to Margo after she kidnapped him for the Trials that he wasn’t a virgin, which wasn’t _technically_ a lie, because it’s such a vague concept in the first place, and as far as he’s concerned if there’s at least two people, and some touching, and at least one of them gets off—doesn’t that count as sex? So yeah, not a virgin. And then there had been Alice, and he—he _really_ doesn’t want to think about the particular embarrassments he suffered in _that_ relationship.

Eliot sits back on his heels and claps his hands together, jerking Quentin out of his thoughts. He’s finished fixing Q’s terrible attempt at a bird; it’s still stylized, obviously, due to the medium, but it’s proportional and looks like an actual bird instead of a misshapen blob.

“Great,” Quentin manages, offering a weak smile. He hates how twisted up his brain gets sometimes. Eliot tilts his head to the side and frowns.

“I can finish up here, if you want to pick out some mushrooms. I was thinking of attempting a soup with the cream we have left from the market, and the bread you made yesterday.” It’s a dismissal, but one made with such gentleness Quentin can’t find it in him to be angry. Eliot is always so patient and soft with him, it borders on condescending sometimes, but he’ll admit—he often needs it.

Not really trusting his voice, Quentin stands up and heads down to the little mushroom patch they’ve been cultivating near the woods. For awhile, Eliot had talked about attempting to grow psychotropics, though he’s stopped in the last few months. Quentin wonders if his own disapproving silences had anything to do with it, but either way it was a relief when he stopped bringing it up. Their mutual alcoholism is more than enough substance abuse to be dealing with in such close quarters, and anyway, Quentin never wants to see dead-eyed, drugged-out Eliot again.

Especially now that—

_Now._

Quentin picks a variety, unsure what kind goes best in soup and figuring any that Eliot doesn’t use can inspire whatever they’ll eat the next day. Eliot had taken over cooking duties for the both of them within the first two weeks of arriving in Fillory after realizing how hopeless Q was in the kitchen even with magic. _Was_ hopeless, anyway; he’s actually pretty decent now, after a  year and a half of practice and, maybe, a little bit of appealing to sympathy from the women at the market. But Eliot still prefers to prepare most of their food, and Quentin does his best to believe him when he says it’s because cooking reminds him of the feeling he got when he hosted parties at Brakebills and not because Quentin’s incapable.

Because. Eliot’s never lied to him; not really, not about anything _important,_ since they started work on the mosaic and realized that, for the foreseeable future, they had to build a partnership that would _survive._ Quentin’s just starting to spiral a little. It’s unavoidable, since his brain just—does that, and he doesn’t have actual meds to take the edge off. But he recognizes it. He’s lived with his depression for half his life now. The paths of self-loathing are well-worn and familiar. He thinks probably their talk the night before triggered it, which is typical of his brain’s refusal to let him have _anything_ good, and tells himself that Eliot is an _adult,_ and fully capable of saying _no,_ and. And he said he’d still want Quentin, even if they got back home today.

The spiral tells him there’s no way they’d just. Keep going like this, back on Earth. It whispers, cruelly, that Eliot would remember how many better options he has, and Quentin would be too weak to fight for him, and this—it’d be like it never happened. Unless Eliot felt the need to make bad jokes about what Q likes in bed.

Except Eliot _wouldn’t do that_ , at least not cruelly, and definitely not in front of anyone else if Quentin asked him not to, and—

He feels oddly calm, as if his brain had hit on something _so_ unbelievable that not even the worst of his depression can make him believe it. Enough that it’s caused the spiral to snap.

 _Huh,_ he thinks. _How about that._

Quentin’s still anxious about the conversation he’s going to have with Eliot, but the nerves aren’t all bad. It’s—well, it’s _exciting,_ in a slightly terrifying way. It reminds him of how he feels when Eliot gets him on his back, pins his wrists over his head, and _looms_ over him with dark eyes and a promise on his lips. Like Quentin’s standing on the edge of a cliff, wind howling all around him, and his feet _slip—_

And he trusts, every time, that Eliot will catch him, and he _has._

This time, he’s standing on a mountain.

* *

Eliot finishes up the mosaic pattern while Quentin’s off getting mushrooms. It’s a bust, no golden key rising from the little plot, but he doesn’t mind. He’s worried Q will be disappointed—this was his idea, after all, and he tends to take his failures hard—but for his part, he’s pleased; he remembers what he promised Q, that if the patterned worked they’d still talk, still _be together_ , back on Earth. He wants to believe he’d keep his promise, but—well.

It’s easier to be brave here, taking everything Q wants to give him, when Quentin has no other choice. But back on Earth is Alice, and the Quest with four more keys to find, and either of those distractions would be more than enough for Q to justify ending things, and Eliot wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him. Even if he thought Quentin was making a mistake. Which, when it comes down to it—he wouldn’t be.

Quentin comes back with a small basket of mushrooms while Eliot’s heating a pot of cream and herbs over a small magical fire, and stops to stare at the completed mosaic with a tight, pained look on his face. Eliot quickly abandons his soup to rush to his side and wrap an arm around his waist.

“No matter,” he says, trying to keep his tone light and hoping it’s enough to hold Quentin’s self-recrimination back. “It was a good idea. Maybe tomorrow we can go for a walk and see what other beauty the forest has to offer?”

“Sure,” Quentin says, still gazing at the mosaic. Eliot sighs and brushes his hair out of the way so he can press a gentle kiss against his temple. It seems to work; Quentin relaxes against his side and lets Eliot take the mushroom basket from his hand. “I hope I got the right ones. I wasn’t sure what kind you wanted.”

Eliot pokes through the basket, though really just for show—it’s not like mushroom soup is particularly fussy, and there’s nothing in their garden that’s inedible. Still, for Q’s sake. “These are perfect,” he says. “Well done.” And Q finally looks at him then, his brown eyes almost gold in the afternoon light, and Eliot curls his hand around his neck and kisses him.

Quentin pushes up on his toes to meet it, and as tempting as it is to make him work for it, Eliot’s feeling generous, and anyway, straining to kiss him always gets Q worked up and that’s. Not where Eliot wants him, right now. He does, however, resist Q’s attempts to deepen it, and though it’s actually _physically painful_ to do so, pulls away when he feels a hand grasping the front of his shirt.

“Come sit down,” he says, pressing the hand that was cupping his neck to the small of his back and leading him over to the little table. It’s structured much like a picnic table, with two short benches on each side. They have a smaller table inside the cottage, for when the weather is bad, but it’s cramped, and anyway after a year and a half at this they’ve both developed a preference to being outside.

Quentin lets himself be led and sits down to watch Eliot work. Eliot’s always loved cooking, and particularly loves making a show of it—tossing the mushrooms in the pot with a little flair, his favorite one-handed tut making the flames grow slightly and flicker blue and purple, stirring with a quiet little satisfaction as he notices Q staring at his fingers. He loves the admiration, the enjoyment, but really—the thing he loves most, the thing he keeps safest to himself—he wants to take care of Quentin.

It’s the same sort of rush he gets right after he’s made Q come, when he’s wide-eyed and soft and struggling to catch his breath (he always stops breathing when he comes; it makes Eliot wonder if someday he’ll come so hard he passes out from lack of oxygen, and then wonder if he might want to do that on purpose). When he curls up against Eliot’s side, and rests his head on Eliot’s shoulder and his hand on Eliot’s heart, and they just. Breathe together. It’s like that, except (usually) less sticky.

He cuts two thick slices of Quentin’s bread for each of them, using up the rest of the loaf. Quentin had made three the day before, a soft peasant loaf with nuts and seeds and a hard crust that will soften nicely in the soup. He’s tried a few different recipes since they’ve been here, but after Eliot mentioned this is his favorite, Q makes it a lot more often. He smears each of the slices with butter and hands Quentin his plate. Almost immediately, Q starts tearing the bread into little pieces, and Eliot smiles fondly at him. He’s not sure where this habit came from—anxiety, or something else—but it’s never seemed to cause him undue distress, and so Eliot’s content to regard it as another of Quentin’s charming quirks. He has so many, and Eliot’s been enjoying discovering all of them. Even the annoying ones.

Once the soup is ready he ladles it into a pair of handmade bowls made with red clay, which Quentin had received along with matching plates from a potter in town as a thank-you gift for a small repair about a month after their arrival in Fillory. The potter’s youngest son had recently moved away, and with no one to help with upkeep, several shelves had fallen, smashing valuable work to bits. Q had fixed the shelves, and then, with a wink, had fixed the pottery as well. Eliot remembers Quentin had worried, a little, about what Eliot thought about revealing themselves as magicians, but the potter just winked back and offered the gift. Quentin had tried to refuse, but Eliot jumped in before he could, thanking the man and ushering Q away. After that, word spread about Quentin’s _handiness_ with broken things, though the word _magic_ was never spoken. Eliot wonders, sometimes, what the villagers think about the odd men in the mosaic cottage; if they make up elaborate stories about him and Quentin to pass a quiet afternoon, or if, perhaps, their arrival is just another in a long line of eccentric travelers eager to win the prize.

Quentin takes his bowl from Eliot’s hands, brushing their fingers together in a way that Eliot might have assumed is accidental if not for the look on Q’s face. Eliot ducks his head and kisses Quentin’s forehead, unable to stop himself, and takes a seat next to him. Typically, they sit across from each other, as the table isn’t really big enough to accommodate both of them on one side, but Eliot makes it work by straddling the bench and eating sideways, carefully keeping his elbows at his sides. Quentin is obviously, painfully aware of Eliot watching him. Scrutinizing him, maybe; Q squirms a little, but not as much as he usually does when Eliot stares at him.

(Eliot thinks maybe he should feel bad about it, but Quentin is beautiful, and he deserves to be watched and admired.)

They eat in silence, which, after so long spent in each other’s solitary company, is nothing but comfortable. Quentin breaks it first. He’s finished his bread and half his soup, and his leg is bouncing inches from Eliot’s knee, and he’s looking up at Eliot with wide, nervous eyes when he finally says, “Um. So. Where do you—I mean. Where should we start?”

Eliot tucks a wayward strand of hair behind Quentin’s ear and rubs his thumb over his cheekbone. “We’ll start with something easy,” he decides, not wanting to make this process harder for Quentin than it’s already going to be. He’s noticed—how could he not?—how much Q hates talking about sex. He won’t pretend he enjoys it sometimes, getting Quentin all flustered and embarrassed, but as sweet as it is to get him like that, it hasn’t exactly been conducive to _actual communication._ Which, frankly, is starting to worry him a little.

“Okay,” Quentin nods. “I—I can do easy.”

Eliot bites back the joke. “You don’t like this. Talking about sex, I mean.” Q shrugs. “Why?”

“It’s not that I don’t,” Quentin says, sighing. “I mean. In the moment, it’s okay, and I want to know, you know, what the other person wants, it’s just.” He flails his hand around, gesturing awkwardly. “I guess sometimes it’s hard for me to know what _I_ want. And sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it—” Eliot sucks in a breath. Calms himself. Tucks the horror and self-recrimination away for later. “It matters what you want. I don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to do, just because you think I want it.”

Quentin’s eyes widen. “Oh! Oh—no, El, you—I promise, you’ve never done anything I didn’t want. It’s easier, I think, when you actually have me—when we’re in bed,” he says. “And. Uh. I like. I like taking direction,” he says, blushing fiercely. “So. Don’t worry about that.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Eliot says, lightly, smiling at him. Q returns it, clearly relieved at Eliot’s reaction. “You like it when I tell you what to do, and you’re good at it.”

“Questionable,” Quentin says.

Eliot raises an eyebrow at him, pushing down the many, many unhelpful things he wants to say. Instead, he asks, “how does it feel? When you follow directions?”

It takes a while for Q to respond. His eyes dart around, as he wrings his hands together in his lap, and he starts and stops speaking half a dozen times, making little cut-off noises, until he finally gives up and shrugs.

“Can I. Try something?” Eliot asks tentatively. He has an idea, and it could either go really well or backfire spectacularly. Quentin nods and Eliot reaches out to grasp the back of Q’s neck, the way he loves. He lets Q’s sharp intake of breath wash over him, sharpening his tongue and his senses. “Tell me,” he says, with all the authority of the High King’s crown. Quentin’s head shoots up. His sweet brown eyes are wide and helpless and Eliot doesn’t break contact. “When I tell you what to do, and you do it. What does it feel like?”

“Um,” Quentin says, swallowing hard. “It feels. Safe. Like—I don’t have to think, or worry about doing something wrong, because you’ve taken care of that. And after, I feel—uh.” He struggles a little, for the words, and Eliot squeezes his neck. Q gasps and squirms, his right hand darting out to curl in the fabric of Eliot’s pants. “Oh god. Uh. Proud, I think? That I did what you wanted. That it was good.”

It’s more than Eliot could’ve dreamed of. He rewards Quentin with a kiss, chaste but for the sharp bite at his lower lip as he pulls away. “Good boy,” Eliot says, just to see Q tremble. “Does this help?”

“The direction, or you touching me?” Quentin asks. “Both, I think.” He smiles and leans into Eliot’s hand. His eyes are a little glassy, but he’s aware, which is good. Tipsy but not drunk, but Eliot knows if he keeps pushing Q will get there. Which isn’t what he wants. Q needs to be at least mostly coherent for this.

With great effort, Eliot lets go of his neck. Q whines at the loss and, unwilling to stop touching him, Eliot settles for covering the hand still clutching his pants with his own. Fingers brushing over the back of Quentin’s wrist. He can feel Q’s pulse there, rapid-fire, but as they sit together it slows to, if not a _calm_ pace, at least a less anxious one. “I like when you push, too,” Eliot says. “When you take initiative, like this morning—that was so fucking hot, baby.”

“I—oh,” Quentin says. The blush high on his cheekbones brightens. “That’s good.”

“It is.” Eliot smiles at him. “It’d have to be a particularly dire situation for me to _not_ want to give you what you want, especially if it involves your mouth.” With the hand that isn’t clutching Quentin’s, he rubs over Q’s lips to prove the point. “But there are other things I can give you, too. You just have to ask.”

Q sighs. “We’re back to _that,_ ” he says. “The—my fantasy.”

“For starters,” Eliot says. He doesn’t for a second believe that’s the only fantasy Q has ever had; it might not even be the darkest. And he’s sure that there are things Quentin wants that he doesn’t even know exist. Yet. “But you said you’ve been thinking about it for _years,_ so. How about this.” He moves his hand over Quentin’s so that he’s circling his wrist, his thumb pressing against Q’s pulse. “I’m going to ask you about it, and it’s going to be hard, but if you try your best to answer them— _honestly_ —I’ll give you a reward before dinner.”

Eliot doesn’t miss the way Q’s breath hitches on the word _reward._ “I can. I can try,” he says. “I want to try, anyway.”

“Good,” Eliot says, which makes Quentin smile. “That’s all I ask. So, first. I want you to close your eyes for me.” It’ll make this whole exercise easier, Eliot thinks, as Quentin obeys, though he hates depriving himself of the ability to stare into Q’s eyes. “I’m going to describe the scene, okay? If I say anything that doesn’t match with the picture in your mind, I want you to correct me, and if I say anything that you absolutely do not want, I want you to say _stop_. Got it?”

Q sighs, like he’s expelling all his anxieties, and the wrinkles in his forehead smooth out. Eliot was right; Quentin isn’t great at talking about what he wants cold, but give him a chance to be contrary and suddenly he’s opening up, if only to tell Eliot he’s wrong. Frustrating as he can be, Eliot _loves_ when Quentin tells him he’s wrong. “Got it,” Q says.

“Okay, so. You’re an English schoolboy in 1940-whatever,” he starts. Q wrinkles his nose and Eliot pauses.

“I mean,” Quentin says. “Maybe when I was younger?”

“So are you an American grad student in 2018?” Eliot asks.

Quentin shrugs. “Not at Brakebills. That just makes me picture Dean Fogg in all of this, which I don’t think _either_ of us wants. But. Closer?”

He’s not into ageplay, Eliot notes. Good. He’s not really, either, at least not anything that has them pretending they’re younger than, like, sixteen. “So you’re an adult person of nebulous age attending a nondescript school in a vague time and place,” Eliot teases, and Quentin snorts out a laugh. _Fucking finally_ , he’s getting Q to relax. “That works. I really wasn’t looking forward to figuring out how to create period-appropriate school uniforms without the benefit of the Internet or sewing machines.”

“You—” Quentin laughs again. “You would’ve done that? If I wanted it?”

“Of course,” El says. “I mean, it probably would’ve turned out pretty questionable, but—if it was the historical roleplay that does it for you? I would’ve figured out how to give it to you.”

“Oh.” He seems a little surprised, but pleased. “Sorry for laughing at you.”

“Don’t be,” Eliot says. “This is supposed to be fun. Not the talking, necessarily, I know this part is awkward, but the part that comes _after_. And it’s supposed to feel a little silly, I think. As long as it’s still good.”

Q nods. “Yeah, it’s. Still good.” He clears his throat. “You can keep going.”

Eliot squeezes his wrist. “So. Okay. You said in the book, some older boys got Martin in trouble—so you’ve done something bad, or been framed for something bad.”

“Done something,” Quentin says, softly. “It’s—I’ve thought about it both ways. But it’s better if I actually did it, or we say I did it. I just feel resentful if I’m innocent.”

 _Perfect,_ Eliot thinks. “So you like the idea of being disciplined.” Quentin doesn’t respond, but he blushes and nods. “As long as you really _deserve_ it.” That tracks with what Eliot’s figured out about Q so far; he likes to earn his pleasure, enjoys it most when Eliot gets off first and frames Q’s orgasm as a reward. It makes sense he’d want to earn pain in the same way. “I like that,” he says; “I don’t want to punish—or pretend to punish—you if you don’t accept it.”

Quentin squirms a little and nods again. “I’m upset I’m in trouble, but I understand I have to be. Uh. _Punished,”_ the last word on a whisper. Eliot files the reaction to that word away as well—he’s definitely going to use it _liberally_ when they actually do this.

“You’re called to the headmaster’s office,” Eliot continues, and Quentin shakes his head.

“That’s what. I used to—” He pauses and struggles for the words. Eliot rubs his thumb across Quentin’s pulse and waits, patient. “That’s how I used to imagine it. But um. Not with you?”

Eliot thinks for a minute. “I know we’re not into the whole historical thing, but… Sometimes, trusted older students would be responsible for disciplining the underclassmen,” he says, and then, because Q’s expression has twisted into something he thinks resembles confusion (it’s hard to tell, with Quentin’s eyes closed) he adds, with a teasing drawl, “I was never very good at doing assigned reading, but once or twice the particular homoeroticism of English boys’ schools caught my attention. I have a passing familiarity with this specific fetish, anyway.”

“Oh,” Quentin says. “That’s—yeah, that fits. I uh.”

“What are you thinking about?” Eliot asks, still teasing, pulling away from the scene for a moment.

Quentin, seemingly able to read the change, opens his eyes. “I was thinking about you,” he says, almost bold. Talking about this is making him braver. Eliot’s proud. “When we first met, and I was a neurotic mess of a first year and you were this—beautiful, untouchable upperclassman. And I know we’re different now and I _like_ that we’re different now—I wouldn’t change that _at all_ —but. You looked really good. Lounging on the sign like that.”

Eliot doesn’t bother trying to stop the grin that splits across his face. He remembers the look Quentin gave him, the first time they met. His mouth was open, his eyes wide and pleading, and Eliot had wanted nothing more than to tell Fogg’s test to go fuck itself so he could spend the next hour gently coaxing the boy to his knees. “Hmm,” he hums lightly; this new knowledge gives him _so many_ ideas. “I _definitely_ want to hear more about this. Later. For now: eyes closed.”

He grumbles a little, but obeys, his long eyelashes brushing dark against his cheeks and the still-tense line of his body settling a little bit more. Eliot murmurs soft praise, just to see his bowed lips part on a sigh. He can see Quentin sinking into it, now that his eyes are closed again, and he’s _right_ on the edge. And Eliot’s about to push him off.

“Good. You’ve done something wrong, broken some rule, and you’ve gotten caught. You know you need to be punished,” he continues on. “You accept this. _Want_ it, even.”

“ _Please,_ ” Q whines, like he can’t help himself, and Eliot shudders with it; the knowledge that _he_ is doing this, that he’s winding Quentin up so much just by _talking_.

Eliot taps his thumb against Q’s wrist. “Patience,” he says, and Q just whines _louder,_ the rebuke making him even more desperate. Eliot has to bite his lip and breathe slowly to keep this going, to not just throw the entire thing aside and fuck Quentin over the table like he’s begging for. “Do I catch you?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Quentin says. He gulps. “You uh. You catch me—smoking, or skipping class, or cheating, or _whatever,_ take your pick—and you grab my wrist,” he flexes the hand Eliot’s caught, and Eliot tightens his grip. “You. Take me to your room. Tell me I have a choice.”

“And that is?” Eliot prompts, as if he can’t guess.

“You say you can report it, or take care of it yourself. And I.”

Eliot sucks in a breath. “You pick _me,_ ” he concludes. Quentin nods frantically, and Eliot decides, _fuck it,_ they’ll discuss the rest of it in a _second_ , he needs— “Open your eyes.”

The second Q’s eyes fly open, dark and wanting and fucking _shining_ , Eliot tangles his fingers in Quentin’s hair and kisses him. He doesn’t tease, this time, just takes what he wants, hard and bruising until all Quentin can do is tilt his head back and _take it._ He’s fucking _shaking,_ every muscle in his body vibrating against Eliot, and he’s moaning into the kiss like he could come from nothing but this. His hands flutter over Eliot’s chest like he isn’t sure he can touch, and can’t decide _where_ he wants to touch. Six months ago Eliot would have worried it meant he doesn’t really want this, but he’s doing better at accepting Quentin at his word that he _does,_ so. He knows it means Quentin’s just so desperate he can’t control his own body, and it’s so fucking hot that Eliot has to pull away before—

 _“Don’t stop,_ ” Quentin gasps, curling his fingers into Eliot’s shirt. “Please, _please—_ ” He squirms closer, letting out a choked off moan when his cock brushes against Eliot’s knee. Even under the loose fabric, Eliot can tell he’s fully hard—from the talking, from the _kissing,_ and Eliot wants nothing more than to get his hand around him and watch him fall apart.

But.

“You—you wanted a choice,” he says, thinking back to the last minute before his self-control snapped in half. “You like it when—when you have to. When it’s your decision. You like when I _make you choose._ ”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Quentin breathes. Eliot ducks his head and kisses Q’s jaw, _gently,_ barely a whisper. “El, _please,_ I—”

“So here’s your choice,” Eliot continues. “I promised you a reward if you answered my questions, and I still have some left. But I can see how much it _hurts,_ baby.” He brushes his palm over Q’s cock, to prove a point, and Quentin fucking _yelps._ “I can help you. I can use my hand and make you come, right now. _Or,_ ” he continues, before Q can say, _yes, please, do that_ , “you sit back, and answer my last questions, and I’ll make you come however you like.”

Quentin takes a breath. Thinks, for about five long seconds, and then folds his hands in his lap and slides a couple inches away from Eliot, so that their bodies are no longer touching. “I’ll answer,” he decides, his voice steady though his body is still vibrating with need. “But. Uh. Can you?” Q raises his hand awkwardly, and it takes a moment for Eliot to realize what he’s asking.

“Of course,” Eliot says. He wraps his hand around Quentin’s wrist, allowing himself to be a grounding presence, and watches Quentin settle.

“I’m ready, I think,” he says. “Um. Do you—do you want me to close my eyes again?”

Eliot considers it but, ultimately, shakes his head. “Keep them open,” he says. It’ll be easier to read Quentin’s face if he can see his eyes. Because this— “I need you to be _completely_ honest with me, okay? No holding back or bending the truth because you don’t want to disappoint me. I won’t be upset if—if you want to end the fantasy there, and skip the—I’ll only be upset if you let me harm you because you didn’t want to tell me _no._ ”

Quentin nods, though his eyes are wide and a little confused. “I—yeah, I can—I mean. I want to try? But I’ve never. So if it’s too much—”

“Then you tell me _stop,_ and I stop, and if you want to have vanilla, missionary sex for the next decade, then that’s what we’ll do, and I’ll still love every fucking second of it. Okay?”

His mouth twitches into a smile at that, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little, and he says, “okay.”

Eliot draws his hand up and kisses his palm, right next to where he’s holding Q’s wrist. It’s as much reassurance for himself as it is for Quentin. He’s been— _dreading_ isn’t the right word, but it’s not the wrong word, either. “Do you want me to hurt you?”

Quentin sucks in a breath, closes his eyes, and nods. When he opens them, his irises have gone pitch-black in the afternoon light, and his lips are quivering. “ _Yes,_ ” he whispers, so quiet that Eliot isn’t sure if he can actually hear him or is just reading his lips. “I want—that. Not—I’ve never—so—”

“A little,” Eliot cuts through his panicked stuttering. “You want me to hurt you a little.”

“I like it when—when you bite me? Or when you hold me down a little too tightly. When—” he blushes— “when you’re—rough. I uh. I don’t know if I’ll like—but I’ve thought about it for so long. It _has_ to be good, right?”

Eliot thrills a little at Quentin’s sweet, nervous, _hopeful_ expression. Of course, fuck, whatever Q wants; part of Eliot still flinches at the thought of doing anything to hurt him, but the rest— _oh,_ the rest is already thinking up ideas. Not too much. Just enough to get his breath to hitch and his eyes to water. Enough that he’s begging _please, please,_ in an endless loop, because he can’t decide whether he wants to end the sentence with _stop_ or _more._

 _But._ He has a responsibility here.

“It—can be good,” Eliot hedges. “If we’re going to use a cane—I won’t lie to you. It’ll be intense. But there are levels and I can keep it mild.” He hopes.

“Oh. Good,” Quentin says. “I mean. I didn’t think you would just—swing at me full strength. But if you think I can handle it.”

“I’ll want to warm you up first,” Eliot continues, trying to recall his embarrassingly limited experience playing with impact. Most of what he knows comes from watching other people. His _hands-on_ experience is just that: hands. But he did watch a pretty dark-skinned girl cane a redhead at Encanto Oculto his first year there. He’d been strung out on something pink that tasted like bubbles and summer rain at the time, but he can still remember the way her wrist flicked and the boy squirmed. Later that night he’d gotten to trace the welts with his tongue. He wonders what the marks he’ll leave on Quentin will taste like. Sweeter, he bets. “It’s hard to take it cold. But we wouldn’t still be talking about this if I didn’t think you could handle it, and if I didn’t think you would stop me if you couldn’t.”

Quentin nods. “I will. If I can’t. I promise. And—”

Eliot grins. “And then I’ll give you a reward. For taking it so well. For _trying_. You’ll have definitely earned it, either way.”

“Have I—have I earned it now? For talking about it?” he asks, eyes shining and hopeful, but with a slight edge to his voice— _I better have earned it, asshole,_ Eliot hears. He likes this part of Quentin, likes when he pushes him far enough that he pushes back, just on the edge of insolent.

He swings his leg over the bench and stands, towering over Quentin. He’s always so fucking _pretty_ when he’s looking up like this; it just makes Eliot want to accentuate their height difference even more. His mouth is parted slightly, his eyes wide, as he prepares to reap the rewards of his behavior. “Of course you have, sweetheart,” Eliot says, ducking down to press a light kiss against Q’s lips. He steps back. “After I clean up.”

“Fuck— _El_ —”

“And you should really write down the Mosaic, before we get all distracted and forget we haven’t and take it apart,” Eliot continues. Which is true. Definitely true. True that he has to clean up, and true that Quentin has to write down the pattern. Not _necessarily_ true that they have to do it _this second,_ but—

Well. He likes making Q wait.


End file.
